The Outliers

February 15, 2016

Natural immunity is the true model for herd immunity

“A.W. Hedrich studied the epidemiology of measles in the US from 1900-1931 and in 1932, published a paper on measles susceptibility in children.He concluded that once 68% of children in a population had been infected with measles, the measles cycle in that population would be interrupted, thereby ending the outbreak. The foundation of the theory was the knowledge that once a child has measles, the child becomes immune to measles for a lifetime. Herd immunity theory assumes that a large portion of the population is truly immune to the pathogen in question.

Health officials and vaccine proponents have recently begun using herd immunity theory to pressure the public into vaccinating. Their argument is that the unvaccinated are only safe from contracting ‘vaccine preventable’ disease because they are enjoying the broader protection of the vaccinated herd. In other words, they maintain that when a certain portion of a population is fully vaccinated, incidence of disease will be so rare that exposure is severely limited.

It sounds plausible on the surface and it has been marketing gold for vaccine manufacturers, adding to the building momentum for a legislative agenda that will make vaccines mandatory and without exemption. It is effective because it is, at once, a scare tactic and an appeal to our sense of obligation and compassion for others. Influencing public opinion is job #1 when you have something to sell and it would be hard to find a more effective tool. The only problem is that it isn’t true.

The original concept of herd immunity referred to natural immunity, conferred as a result of contracting and recovering from disease. Transferring the concept and applying it wholesale to a vaccinated population assumes some basic facts which do not hold true. It is a fundamentally flawed theory in relation to a vaccinated population.

Natural immunity typically offers lifetime protection. In a population where immunity has been conferred naturally, each generation of children contract childhood illnesses while also naturally boosting the immunity of those who were previously infected through a cycle of re-exposure. This is a model for true herd immunity, and its benefits for protecting the herd are self-evident.”